THE war on drugs has failed according to a new report calling for a national debate on the controversial topic of decriminalising drugs.

The report, released today, urges politicians to face the taboo subject. It says a massive re-think is needed to tackle the illegal drug trade that allows organised crime to flourish and is "killing our children".

The report draws on the views of high profile Australians and health experts.

Its verdict is that the tough law and order approach is doing more harm than good.

Put together by not-for-profit think-tank Australia21, the report includes the views of former federal law enforcement officers, health ministers, and premiers.

Former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery is quoted as being "strongly in favour of legalising, regulating, controlling and taxing all drugs".

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"A first step towards such a regime could be decriminalisation, similar to the approach adopted 10 years ago in Portugal or an adaptation of that approach," he writes.

But he does not advocate making all drugs available to "anybody wanting them".

Australia21 stops short of directly backing decriminalisation but one former top prosecutor says in the report drugs should be legalised, regulated and taxed to control use.

I've been saying this for a very long time. The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

The reason I think it won't happen in the U.S. is they make too much money on it in one way or another. Between all the people that would drop prescriptions in favor of something else, fines and confiscating money. I wouldn't be surprised if the government is trafficking drugs in the first place. Just take a look into ATF's Fast and Furious..
If the government was so intent on helping it's people by keeping them off drugs why don't we actually help our people? Why are we kicking people out of their houses? Why did we bail out the big banks for their mistakes when the majority of people didn't want it? Why are we going from one war to another? Why is a prescription here for something $60 but in Mexico it's a couple dollars? How many people went hungry last night or didn't have a place to stay? Why are they spending money that doesn't exist? How's social security going to be in 30 years?

There's so much more we could do here to actually help..if that's what they wanted.

I've been saying this for a very long time. The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

The reason I think it won't happen in the U.S. is they make too much money on it in one way or another. Between all the people that would drop prescriptions in favor of something else, fines and confiscating money. I wouldn't be surprised if the government is trafficking drugs in the first place. Just take a look into ATF's Fast and Furious..
If the government was so intent on helping it's people by keeping them off drugs why don't we actually help our people? Why are we kicking people out of their houses? Why did we bail out the big banks for their mistakes when the majority of people didn't want it? Why are we going from one war to another? Why is a prescription here for something $60 but in Mexico it's a couple dollars? How many people went hungry last night or didn't have a place to stay? Why are they spending money that doesn't exist? How's social security going to be in 30 years?

There's so much more we could do here to actually help..if that's what they wanted.

Yes, basically. I don't think a lot of people understand how uneven the tables are here. Top 20% of Americans have almost 90% of the wealth. The Walton's (Walmart) wealth is equal to the bottom 30% of the population's wealth.

I would think the majority of people think the Federal Reserve is part of the government. I also think most people don't know about or understand fractional reserve banking, in which banks can turn $1 into $10 or even $1m into $100m out of thin air. Then they gamble this fake money away on bad loans..then we give them billions for it when it collapses?

The U.S. debt clock lists debt for unfunded liabilities at $118,273,676,822,893. Let's see how tall that would be in $100 bills.
According to the U.S. Treasury a bill is .0043 inches thick.
118,273,676,822,893 / 100 = 1,182,736,768.22
1,182,736,768.22 * .0043in = 5,085,768.10
5,085,768.10 / 63,360in (1 mile) = 80.26miles

So our debt represented by $100 bills stacked high would be over 80 miles tall. Guess we'll see how much longer we can keep this up. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, S. Africa) just announced they are going to drop the U.S. dollar and trade in their local currencies.

Of course it didn't work. It wasn't designed to especially when they have shiny new prisons to fill with young black males locked away on hefty non violent offense because of cocaine. Something to the tune of 80% of all blacks in prison are there on drug offences. crazy

there is too much money at stake they will never legalize or decriminalize drugs like pjab said. what would they do with all the empty prisons? maybe mexico could become half way civilized again. prohibition doesn't work we already know this because it was tried in the 1920's with alcohol and it failed miserably.

This is something ordinary people have known for years. I love a good joint. Yet despite smoking them for 25 years now, I've never been arrested, I've got a good job, I pay my taxes and no facist pig or corrupt politician is going to take the moral high ground with me. So fuck the government (where ever you are) and the police and enjoy drugs if you want to. It should all be legal and if people cant handle them then its just Darwinism - some people are so weak that they're bound to be losers with or without drugs. I mean we don't ban booze just because its dangerous and addictive do we ? Its Peoples choice what they imbibe and the Government can go hang (literally)

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Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. And in the end who do you think is using some serious strategy to get it. I mean why would people who are supposed to protect us from all of this torment. Do eveything possible to drive everything into the mud. I would hope prosperity would be a defining quality in the process of making the right decision on how to do things around here. Instead we turn our backs long enough to let retards run our shit and we all suffer from our negligence.